Post by mgOn Sat, 22 Apr 2017 14:46:13 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgPost by rumpelstiltskin<snip>
Post by mgI have it good; we have it good. I imagine that most
everyone on this newsgroup has it pretty good, compared to
our ancestors. And that's the truth. That's reality.
There's another reality and another truth, though. Times are
changing; the world is changing; politics is changing. The
world today is not the same as the world yesterday and the
world tomorrow won't be the same as the world today.
My natural curiosity and my concern for posterity makes me
want to understand how it is changing and what is causing
those changes. It's all just the simple, or that
complicated, depending on how you look at it.
Post by El CastorBTW -- Barring a Hell of a lot of inflation, the SS trust fund will
never be paid off -- at least not in our lifetime.
Current projections indicate that the trust fund will be
depleted in 2034. I have grand children that are
approaching 40. So, they'll become eligible for SS in
approximately 2042.
Future generations, if there are any, have more to
worry about than that. We're destroying the global
environment and driving species to extinction at an
alarming rate. The earth's resources are abundant
but not infinite. Islander commented some time
ago that the reason "primitive" cultures of Papua
New Guinea natives moved their villages frequently
is because they'd contaminated their existing
location (mostly with feces) so badly that they had
little choice. If we deplete the bounty of the whole
earth with our thoughtless depredations, there's
nowhere else to go.
Yes, indeed. During the Bush years, when people were talking
about SS a lot, some people used to say that SS was Ponzi
scheme, which it isn't. However, population growth, and
economic growth based on population, is indeed a Ponzi
scheme. I also look at it as a new twist on the Tragedy of
the Commons, where people with a high reproduction rate act
contrary to the common good of all users of natural
resources.
Overpopulation, incidentally, is a subject that is obviously
taboo in our society. When I do a Google search, I don't get
very many hits. People don't like to talk about it. Here's a
website, though, that lists California as the most
overpopulated state as the state with the largest population
compared to the number of people its actually capable of
holding.
http://savvyroo.com/chart-1214380101203-five-most-overpopulated-states
Population growth in the United States is due to two things --
immigration and a higher fertility rate in previous generations that
has left us with a supply of women still of child bearing age that
cannot be sustained. The current fertility rate of 1.87 children per
woman is well below the replacement rate of about 2.2. If you want to
see where we are headed, look at Japan.
"Japan Needs More People
Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying hard to combat his
nations alarming demographic decline: promoting robots and other
productivity-enhancing technology, bringing more women into the
workforce, even opening the door a bit wider to foreigners. Its
plain, however, that he needs to try harder still, especially when it
comes to immigration. Japanese companies already report they cant
find people to hire, and the future isnt likely to get better --
government researchers expect the countrys population to fall by
nearly a third by 2065, at which point nearly 40 percent will be
senior citizens. Therell be 1.3 workers for every person over the age
of 65, compared to 2.3 in 2015."
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-17/japan-needs-people-and-a-cultural-revolution
The top 40 most overpopulated countries are listed below.
Note that Japan is listed as number seven. Just because a
politician says that a country needs more people, that
doesn't necessarily make it true.
https://isa-aphumangeography.wikispaces.com/file/view/Overpopulation+Index.pdf
1 Singapore
2 Israel
3 Kuwait
4 Korea Republic
5 Jordan
6 United Arab Emirates
7 Japan
8 Lebanon
9 Iraq
10 Belgium
11 Italy
12 Netherlands
13 Switzerland
14 Egypt
15 Spain
16 Greece
17 United Kingdom
18 Portugal
19 Iran
20 Saudi Arabia
21 Sri Lanka
22 Albania
23 Korea DPRP
24 Qatar
25 Dominican Republic
26 Algeria
27 Azerbaijan
28 Armenia
29 China
30 Cuba
31 Germany
32 Poland
33 India
34 Bosnia & Herzegovina
35 United States of America
36 Libya
37 Czech Republic
38 Haiti
39 Pakistan
40 Turkey
41 Ireland
42 Mexico
---------------------------------------
Futurists don't consider overpopulation
one of the issues of the future. They
consider it the issue of the future.
-- Dan Brown
Look at the method behind the production of that table ...
"The Index assesses the extent to which a country can support
itself from its own renewable resources, by measuring per
capita consumption, or ecological footprint in global hectares
per capita, against per capita biologically productive capacity
(biocapacity) in global hectares."
https://isa-aphumangeography.wikispaces.com/file/view/Overpopulation+Index.pdf
Singapore ranks #1. Why? Singapore is a "state" that is just a city.
So a city is vastly over populated by this phony measure because there
is no farmland within it's borders? That is just BS. What fertility
rates do is look at the current population, and the number of children
produced per woman. If each woman over the course of her life is
producing fewer than 2 children (presumably half are female), then in
the future there will be fewer women producing fewer children and the
population will shrink. It doesn't matter if Singapore has one
backyard vegetable garden, or a million acres of farm land -- it's
population will not sustain itself without immigration.
That said, until the last 20 or 30 years some countries had a much
higher fertility rate and the resulting surplus of women caused the
population to swell, and that effect may still be near the peak, but
current fertility rates in the developed world are sub-replacement.
Here are the only countries above the 2.2 replacement rate -- which,
by the way, varies depending on female death rates and health care in
a particular country.
1 Niger 6.62 2016 est.
2 Burundi 6.04 2016 est.
3 Mali 5.95 2016 est.
4 Somalia 5.89 2016 est.
5 Uganda 5.80 2016 est.
6 Burkina Faso 5.79 2016 est.
7 Zambia 5.67 2016 est.
8 Malawi 5.54 2016 est.
9 Angola 5.31 2016 est.
10 Afghanistan 5.22 2016 est.
11 South Sudan 5.19 2016 est.
12 Mozambique 5.15 2016 est.
13 Nigeria 5.13 2016 est.
14 Ethiopia 5.07 2016 est.
15 Timor-Leste 4.90 2016 est.
16 Benin 4.86 2016 est.
17 Tanzania 4.83 2016 est.
18 Guinea 4.82 2016 est.
19 Sierra Leone 4.76 2016 est.
20 Cameroon 4.70 2016 est.
21 Congo, Republic of the 4.63 2016 est.
22 Liberia 4.60 2016 est.
23 Congo, Democratic Republic of the 4.53 2016 est.
24 Equatorial Guinea 4.48 2016 est.
25 Rwanda 4.46 2016 est.
26 Chad 4.45 2016 est.
27 Togo 4.43 2016 est.
28 Gabon 4.43 2016 est.
29 Sao Tome and Principe 4.40 2016 est.
30 Senegal 4.36 2016 est.
31 Central African Republic 4.36 2016 est.
32 Gaza Strip 4.30 2016 est.
33 Guinea-Bissau 4.16 2016 est.
34 Madagascar 4.12 2016 est.
35 Eritrea 4.07 2016 est.
36 Iraq 4.06 2016 est.
37 Ghana 4.03 2016 est.
38 Western Sahara 3.93 2016 est.
39 Mauritania 3.93 2016 est.
40 Yemen 3.77 2016 est.
41 Sudan 3.68 2016 est.
42 Gambia, The 3.63 2016 est.
43 Egypt 3.53 2016 est.
44 Zimbabwe 3.50 2016 est.
45 Comoros 3.47 2016 est.
46 Cote d'Ivoire 3.46 2016 est.
47 Namibia 3.36 2016 est.
48 West Bank 3.33 2016 est.
49 Solomon Islands 3.22 2016 est.
50 Jordan 3.18 2016 est.
51 Tonga 3.18 2016 est.
52 Vanuatu 3.16 2016 est.
53 Kenya 3.14 2016 est.
54 Papua New Guinea 3.10 2016 est.
55 Marshall Islands 3.09 2016 est.
56 Philippines 3.06 2016 est.
57 Tuvalu 2.98 2016 est.
58 Belize 2.90 2016 est.
59 American Samoa 2.87 2016 est.
60 Nauru 2.84 2016 est.
61 Oman 2.84 2016 est.
62 Guatemala 2.83 2016 est.
63 Haiti 2.79 2016 est.
64 Samoa 2.77 2016 est.
65 Laos 2.76 2016 est.
66 Swaziland 2.74 2016 est.
67 Algeria 2.74 2016 est.
68 Honduras 2.72 2016 est.
69 Bolivia 2.68 2016 est.
70 Lesotho 2.68 2016 est.
71 Pakistan 2.68 2016 est.
72 Tajikistan 2.67 2016 est.
73 Israel 2.66 2016 est.
74 Kyrgyzstan 2.64 2016 est.
75 Cambodia 2.56 2016 est.
76 Syria 2.55 2016 est.
77 Malaysia 2.53 2016 est.
78 India 2.45 2016 est.
79 Micronesia, Federated States of 2.45 2016 est.
80 Kuwait 2.44 2016 est.
81 Fiji 2.44 2016 est.
82 Kiribati 2.43 2016 est.
83 Faroe Islands 2.36 2016 est.
84 Venezuela 2.35 2016 est.
85 Djibouti 2.35 2016 est.
86 United Arab Emirates 2.33 2016 est.
87 Panama 2.33 2016 est.
88 Guam 2.31 2016 est.
89 South Africa 2.31 2016 est.
90 Dominican Republic 2.31 2016 est.
91 Botswana 2.30 2016 est.
92 Kazakhstan 2.28 2016 est.
93 Argentina 2.28 2016 est.
94 Cabo Verde 2.26 2016 est.
95 Mexico 2.25 2016 est.
96 Ecuador 2.22 2016 est.
97 Cook Islands 2.21 2016 est.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
Guess which country at 0.82 has the lowest fertility rate in the
world. Singapore!
So what to do? When Africa and the Middle East have larger populations
than they can support, tell them to stay the Hell away, and don't
expect another ship load of free food. Even the premier liberal of
this group, Jim Chamblee, agreed on that point.
--
"The left is fundamentally reactionary. It is a reaction against capitalism and against America. The left are defined by what they are against, or more accurately who they hate."
... Robert Tracinski